Part 9 (1/2)

The Ultimate Weapon I was getting to know my way back and forth across the plain rather well by now; and keeping a weather-eye open, of course, for embattled heroes blaring iambics at each other, it didn't take me too long to arrive back at Odysseus' s.h.i.+p. Oh, the merest hour, I should think. After all, Scamander wasn't a big plain as plains go not your steppes of Asia by any means: and the only problem was, you had to keep fording that little river, which wandered about all over the place like a brook intoxicated. The Meander, I remember it was called; and it, well, it meandered to coin a phrase.

Anyway, I arrived, as I say, rather damp; but most fortunately, as it seemed at the time, just as Odysseus had dropped in for a routine check on the Doctor's progress; and I must say, as far as I could see from my hiding place in a thicket of sea-holly, he didn't seem to have made much. Nevertheless...

'I think this may interest you,' said the Doctor, without much confidence. He produced an armful of drawings, and spread them out on the hatch way in the evening sun. 'You were asking me about flying machines, I believe?'

'No, I wasn't you were telling me about them. Well?'

rumbled Odysseus, discouragingly.

'Well, this is one of them...' And to my horrified amazement, he had the gall to produce a paper dart from amongst the doc.u.ments, and fling it over the side of the boat; where it nose-dived into a decomposing starfish.

Odysseus noted the fact without enthusiasm. 'What did you say it was?' he enquired with admirable self control, I thought.

'A flying machine,' repeated the Doctor, proudly.

'It looks more like a parchment dart, to me. My son, Telemachus, used to make them to annoy his tutors. So did I, come to that!'

'Oh, did you, indeed?' said the Doctor, somewhat taken aback.

'Yes. And rather better ones, if you must know.'

But the Doctor was nothing if not resilient. 'Excellent,' he cried; 'Capital! If you're already familiar with the basic principles, it makes it very much easier to explain. That dart is merely the prototype of a very simple aerial conveyance!'

'What are you talking about now?'

'Don't you see, it would be possible to build a very much larger one, capable of carrying a man?'

'And what earthly good would that do?'

'Think, my dear Odysseus: a whole fleet of them could carry a company of your men over the walls, and into Troy!'

'Oh could they now? And how would we get them into the air?'

'Catapults!' said the Doctor, producing his fatuous master-stroke. 'Ping!' he ill.u.s.trated.

'I beg your pardon?'

'Catapults. I thought you'd have heard of them.'

'No, I can't say I have. Catapults, d'you say? Sounds like a rather vulgar barbarian oath to me. Yes, I must try it out on Agamemnon Catapults to you, my lord! And very many of them! Yes...'

The Doctor grew impatient: 'Nonsense, Odysseus! A catapult is... well, look here, you could easily make one out of strips of ox-hide. I've made a drawing of one. First, you twist the strips together so. Then you fasten the two ends securely.

Next, you take up the slack in the middle, and you stretch it like a bow string.'

'Go on what do I do then. Use it as a hammock?'

'Nothing of the sort! You pour water over it, and leave it to dry in the sun. Now, tell me Odysseus; what happens then, eh?'

'It begins to smell, I should think.'

'Never mind that, for the moment. It also shrinks, doesn't it?

Thereby producing the most colossal tension between the two points here. So, now you place your flying-machine at the point of maximum strain... C.'

'Like an arrow in a bow?'

'Precisely! And then, you let go!'

'Always as well to remember to do that!'

'And Eureka! It flies up into the air, with a soldier clinging to its back and it glides, following a curvilinear trajectory, over the wall, and into the very heart of Troy! Nothing could be simpler!'

A pa.s.sing seagull made a harsh comment, as Odysseus considered the matter 'I see...' he said at length; 'Well, for your information, Doctor, here's one soldier who's doing nothing of the sort!'

The Doctor looked caring and compa.s.sionate: he had every sympathy with human frailty, and said so. 'Well, perhaps Agamemnon, then if you're afraid?'

'Now that that might be quite an idea!' mused Odysseus, cheering up somewhat. 'But no he wouldn't go along with it...' might be quite an idea!' mused Odysseus, cheering up somewhat. 'But no he wouldn't go along with it...'

'Whyever not? It would be a privilege.'

'I know but he wouldn't see it that way. Fellows a fool! No we'll have to think of someone else.'

'Well, anyone would do: a child could operate it!' 'Really?

Or an old man?'

'Oh yes, of course he could. Old Nestor would do admirably.'

'I wasn't thinking of Nestor!'

'You weren't?'

'No. Tell me, Doctor how would you feel about being the first man to fly?'

The Doctor's brain raced in ever-diminis.h.i.+ng circles. I could tell. by his ears which went puce.

'Well,' he said, 'I should be extremely honoured, of course.'